


the christmas fic

by wherethegravelsthin



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21967030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherethegravelsthin/pseuds/wherethegravelsthin
Summary: In which Joel is determined to make Ellie’s first Christmas special.*features brief mentions, implications, and depictions of violence, but most of this is just fluff for fluff’s sake*please see author’s notes!
Relationships: Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us), Joel & Sarah (The Last of Us), Joel & Tommy (The Last of Us), Maria/Tommy (The Last of Us)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	the christmas fic

**Author's Note:**

> when i wrote this fic last night finally finishing it up at 1:30 in the morning, i was really proud of it. i was also unaware at that time that naughty dog has released artwork depicting joel as jewish, and therefore, he would not celebrate christmas. i am choosing to keep this fanfic up because i worked hard on it, and for the holiday season next year i plan to revise it to be more accurate to naughty dog’s canon. christmas only comes once a year and i just want the fic i wrote for it to be shared.

Joel Miller learned over twenty years ago to not count on his expectations. Who in the world could’ve foreseen a fungus nearly wiping out mankind? The remnants of the human race watched as all of the civilization and government in the world crumbled. In the blink of an eye, all of mankind’s advancements turned into nothing; smart phones and Facebook barely had time to exist. 

Joel Miller never would have imagined that he would outlive his own daughter, and yet he did. He never would’ve imagined resorting to killing innocent strangers to survive, but Joel turned as dark and brutal as the rest of the world did. Eventually he came to know the smell of burned flesh, the sight of corpses decaying on the streets. He watched blood stains on the walls of buildings slowly darken over time. Life was no longer about living; it was about surviving, existing to see the sun rise another day, another day to suffer and kill and scavenge and smuggle in order to see the next. By the time he arrived in Boston, Joel knew someday he would leave; the QZ would fall, most likely, but it wouldn’t last forever. It didn’t matter; no matter what, Joel would do whatever it took to survive.

But after leaving Boston, he realized, to his astonishment, that he was not as prepared for the changes of the world as he thought. He knew violence; he knew cruelty and ruthlessness, and wore them like the scars on his hands, the lines on his face. But Joel Miller never once anticipated that he would become a father again. And he certainly never would have never thought that one day, he would be the one waking his daughter up on Christmas morning.

“Ellie,” he whispered, gently nudging her shoulder underneath her quilt. “C’mon, get up.”

“Joel?” Ellie murmured sleepily, rolling from her side onto her back. She squinted up at him and shivered, digging herself deeper under her pile of blankets. “What time is it?”

“‘Bout nine. It’s Christmas morning, kiddo.”

Ellie wrinkled her nose. “Is that something you have to get up early for?”

Joel only chuckled, gazing down at Ellie, who had gone back to closing her eyes. Joel knew that for a kid raised in the Boston QZ, the most Christmas was to them was a fable, a fairy tale from before the Outbreak began. This’d be her first time experiencing the holiday.

“I got somethin’ for you,” Joel whispered, and Ellie’s eyes popped open again. 

“What is it?” she asked, curiously.

“You’re gonna have to get out of bed and come see it.”

“Awww… alright. I’ll be up in a minute.” Ellie sat up in bed, pulling her quilt up to her shoulders. Sniffing the air, she asked, “Did you make breakfast?”

Joel nodded. “Yep. Bacon and eggs.” And a cup of black coffee would go perfectly with it… and yet, even with a sizable number of other crops going including marijuana of all things, Jackson still hadn’t been able to procure a coffee plant. It’d need the greenhouse to survive the cold winters, and that wouldn’t be ready for a while yet, not even considering the process of obtaining a coffee plant… Joel knew it was improbable, but he still held out hope every day that he’d taste coffee again. 

Ellie’s eyes lit up. “I’ll be right there.” Joel nodded and shut the door to her room, returning to the kitchen and his spot at the table. 

It astounded Joel, how quickly he slipped back into anything akin to a normal life; after all, he never assumed he’d have one again. Everything prior to his thirtieth birthday felt as though it had been from another life, and his memories seemed distant, as though he had never even truly lived them. Every moment, every conversation with Ellie or Tommy, every time he nailed a plank of wood into place in a new house, Joel was reminded of the past and was astounded by similarities he never would’ve expected. This could be just another Christmas morning, making breakfast, the fireplace roaring in the living room, presents just waiting to be opened by his daughter.

Lord. Ellie reminded Joel so much of Sarah sometimes, it stunned him. Her sarcastic quips when irritated, her spirited joking, the awkward way she held a guitar when she first started playing — he had all seen it before, in another life, in another world.

Ellie emerged from around the corner, trodding over to the kitchen table in her recently crafted slippers, her hair still lying limp around her face. Joel watched as she spotted the pile of presents awaiting her at her place at the table — comic books, cassette tapes, and a pile of homemade maple sugar candies. The comics and tapes had been lucky finds over the past few months of patrols, which Joel had been hiding in his closet. Ellie’s jaw dropped and and she gasped, running over to the table to paw through the collection. “Oh, man,” she exclaimed, flipping through the pages of a comic. “I’ve heard of this one! Astro Alliance, it’s a first-contact thriller… Sweet! Oh, hey, and Triple Phoenix!” Ellie beamed at Joel from across the table, and then she paused, and dropped the comics she was holding back on the table before running back to her room. “Hang on — I’ve got something for you too,” She called, her hair flying behind her.

“Ah, Ellie, you didn’t have to get me anythin’ — ” Joel started, but Ellie emerged once again from around the corner with a dark bundle in her hands, wrapped in a ribbon.

“Here,” She said, handing it to Joel. “I know how much you hate the cold in winter, so…”

Joel took the bundle in his hands and undid the bow holding the ribbon in place. The bundle came loose in his hands, and he unfolded the soft length of fabric. It was a knit scarf, crafted with dark gray and brown yarn. “You made this?” He asked, glancing up at Ellie with a smile.

“Yeah. Florence Baker was teaching some of us how to knit. It’s not the greatest but… d’you like it?”

Joel hadn’t even considered Ellie gifting him a present, and he wrapped the warm fabric around his neck, trying to find the words to say thank you. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at his broken watch, and that last normal night with Sarah flashed in his mind. Joel recognized the expression on Ellie’s face, as if eagerly anticipating his thoughts on the gift, and in his mind’s eye he instantly saw Sarah looking at him with the same expression. “Oh, Ellie,” He finally said, running his fingers over the yarn — some of the stitches had been dropped, but it was remarkably well done for a first try. “Thank you.”

Ellie gave him a satisfied grin, and Joel swallowed and cleared his throat. “Why don’t you eat your breakfast before it gets cold?” He asked.

“Oh, right!” Ellie responded, and leaned across the table to grab the plate meant for her, pushing her comics out of the way to the side. “You don’t mind if I read these at the table, right?”

Joel chuckled with a wave of his hand. “Go right ahead.”  
“Sweet,” she replied, and flipped open to the first page with one hand, while using a fork to spear her eggs with her other hand. The rest of breakfast passed in mostly silence, as Ellie read and ate, and Joel finished sipping on his cup of tea, which wasn’t as good as coffee but a better replacement than nothing. The scarf was warm, the fabric soft and cozy, and Ellie didn’t know it but it had been the perfect gift for the day. There was one last surprise for her waiting on the front porch, one that had taken weeks to craft and Joel had managed to successfully hide up until this point. 

When Ellie finished her last mouthful, Joel looked up and asked inconspicuously, “Hm. Is someone at the door?”

Ellie turned around in her chair to glance at the front door behind her. “I didn’t hear anything,” she said.

“Can you get up and check if anyone’s there?” Joel asked, leaning back on his seat.

Ellie’s eyebrows knit together. “Um… okay,” she ventured, and closed her comic book and got up from the table. Joel watched her walk down to the front door, twist the doorknob, and inch the door open.

“I don’t see anyo — ” she began, and then cut herself off with a gasp. “No fucking way!”

Joel got up from his seat and walked over to the now wide-open front door. Sitting on their front porch was a hand crafted toboggan, put together from the various wood scraps Joel had from all the construction he’d done in Jackson since they’d moved in. He had found the instructions to craft the sled in an old book he found on his patrols, and had spent the last while crafting it in his free time at the Jackson workshop. The real struggle was steaming the wood to add the signature curve to the front, but with the aid of the other Jacksonites with experience in woodworking, they finally managed to put it all together. A length of red-and-white yarn was added as a handle, and was currently tied in a bow at the front.

Ellie ran her fingers over the polished, smooth wood. “How’d you…”

“Took some work,” Joel replied. “But I figure every kid should ride on a sled at least once.”

“Can we take it out and ride it?” Ellie asked, grinning, her eyes alight. 

“Sure thing. That’s what it’s there for.”

“Today?”

“I was plannin’ on it.”

“Yes! Oh my god, I’ve gotta go get dressed — ” Ellie began to run back into the house but stopped midway to her room and turned around, running back to Joel and wrapping her arms around him. “Thank you,” she mumbled into his flannel shirt.

“Not a problem, kiddo. Go on and get dressed.” Joel hugged her back, and Ellie let go, running back to her room, grinning wildly. As her bedroom door shut behind her, Joel leaned against the open doorframe and smiled to himself. From behind him, he heard the yelling and squealing of children running past, and he turned to watch. Joel and Ellie’s across-the-street neighbors, the Booker family, were also up. Their children, two boys aged six and eight, tossed snowballs at each other, howling with laughter. Joel caught the eye of their mother and father, who grinned and waved in greeting. Joel nodded and lifted his mug with a faint smile before stepping back inside, with his mug of tea in one hand, and Ellie’s new toboggan in the other.

—

“Here,” Joel said, taking the toboggan from Ellie’s hands. “We’ll tie it up to the saddle… so we can drag it behind us.”

Joel and Ellie stood dressed in their warmest layers beside Joel’s horse, a chestnut named Scout. Ellie, her arms crossed in front of her chest for warmth, watched as Joel tie the sled to the back of the horse. Her eyebrows furrowed and she bit down on her lower lip.

Once Joel was finished tying the sled up to the horse, he looked back at Ellie and paused. “You alright?” He asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” she replied, looking up from the sled on the ground before her. “It’s just… a bit familiar, y’know?”

Joel glanced at the sled tied up to the horse and at once understood what she meant. “Yeah, I hear you,” He said with a nod, stepping up to Scout’s side and climbing up onto him. “Don’t let it bother you, kiddo. I’m alright now.” He reached his hand out to her. “Need a hand up?”

Ellie nodded at him and took his hand, and Joel lifted her up behind him onto Scout. Sitting behind him, Ellie leaned against Joel and wrapped her arms around his middle. “I can’t believe it was only a year ago,” she said, quietly.

Joel nodded. “I hear you,” he replied, taking Scout’s reigns in his hand. “Alright, boy, let’s go,” he said, and Scout took off into the snowy town.

The streets weren’t quite as busy as they usually were, likely because no one was working today, but various families were out, watching their children play in the snow. Snowmen stood in front of houses with stick arms outstretched wide, pebble smiles on their faces. Children squealed with delight, various new or repurposed toys in their gloved hands. Lights twinkled, strung up on the various buildings in town. 

Just before the main gate of the wall protecting the town stood a large and brilliant pine tree, covered in snow and decorated with homemade ornaments. Having a Christmas tree in each individual house wasn’t exactly a major priority in Jackson, so this one was decorated for the whole town to enjoy, especially those without a tree up in their homes. 

Standing before the tree, Joel spotted Florence Baker, lifting her young daughter up to place an ornament on a limb of the tree. 

“Hi, Florence,” Ellie called over.

Florence looked over, smiled, and after putting her daughter back down, waved at Joel and Ellie. “Hi, Ellie, Joel. Merry Christmas,” she replied.

Joel nodded in greeting and had Scout pause. “Ma’am,” he replied. Joel looked down and noticed Florence’s daughter, Phoebe, standing by her mom’s side, clutching a plush toy. “Whatcha got there, Phoebe?” he asked her with a friendly smile.

“Santa came,” she squealed, holding up the toy — a stark white Teddy Bear with green button eyes and a stitched smile. “He’s real, he came! He brought me this!” 

Joel smiled as Florence winked up at him and Ellie. “Ah, that’s real nice,” He replied. “What’s his name?”

“Mister Winters,” Phoebe trilled, squeezing her new toy tight against her chest.

“That’s a real nice name,” Joel replied with a gentle smile. “Have a merry Christmas, you two,” he added, picking up the reigns again and urging Scout onward.

“Oh, and Joel,” Florence added, calling after them, “I like the scarf!” 

Joel chuckled in response and waved goodbye as he and Ellie strode up to the gate. “I still don’t really get the Santa thing,” Ellie admitted, once they were far enough away from the tree. 

“What about it?” Joel asked her.

“Like, where did you guys even come up with this stuff? An imaginary old, fat guy in a red suit who brings kids presents? In a sleigh? With flying reindeer?”

“Well, we used to tell kids that if they were bad, Santa would bring them coal instead,” Joel replied. “Keep kids from misbehaving.”

“But how could anyone believe that?”

Joel chuckled. “Back in my day, kids would believe anything. And I guess they still will, if they’re young.”

“Isn’t it bad to lie, though?” Ellie began. “Everyone has already told me not to spoil it for the kids, and I won’t, but won’t it hurt to find out? When they grow up?”

Joel was silent for a moment. “Well, they’re not lying to hurt ‘em. Santa was just part of the Christmas tradition, see? If people here wanna tell their children Santa still visits safe places, I say let ‘em. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.” 

“Hmm.” Ellie replied, quiet. “I guess.”

As they approached the gate, Joel spotted Esther standing guard at the wall. “Esther,” he called in greeting with a nod.

“Joel,” she replied, her head tilted to the side, eyebrows raised, a smile on her lips. “Heading out?”

“Yes ma’am. Gonna go find a nice hill to try out this sled on.” Joel replied, gesturing behind the horse. 

“I see that,” Esther responded, nodding at the piece of woodwork. “You both armed? Got your gas masks?” 

Joel nodded, and when he looked back at Ellie, she was nodding too. And it was true; Joel certainly never left the house without a gun anymore, and he instructed Ellie to do the same. As for going outside the wall, there was just no question about it; encounters with Infected or other hostile survivors were always a possibility, even if the area had been clear for a few days. Venturing outside the wall was always a risk, but aside from a few scant instances, most journeys beyond the walls of Jackson ended with the people returning safely. 

“Alright. You know the routes and safe zones. Anything happens that you can’t handle — ”

“We come back,” Joel finished with a nod. 

Esther nodded in return. “That’s right. Open the gate!” She yelled, turning to the other men working the wall. “We’ve got two going out!”

The long wall of wood moved, and Joel and Ellie strode out into the snowy wilderness beyond Jackson on Scout’s back. The snow rested on the boulders and stones, the branches of the evergreen trees. Birds flew through the sky, some chirping. Joel glanced over his shoulder and spotted a flash of red. “Look at that,” he said quietly to Ellie, pointing to the right. “Cardinals.”

“Oh, cool,” Ellie whispered. The cardinal perched on a tree for an instant before taking off high into the sky, soaring away.

Walking through the wilderness, Joel and Ellie past through the abandoned areas of the former town, burnt ruins and looted disasters. They walked towards the east route, the fastest way to the wilderness beyond the ruins of the town. The area had been reported to be safe lately by the recent patrols, but when Joel saw footprints in the snow, he paused. 

“Listen,” he whispered to Ellie. “You hear anything?”

Scout stopped in his tracks. Joel strained his hearing, listening for anyone — or anything — that could be nearby. The footsteps led in the direction of a yellow house, whose right wall had collapsed, exposing the toppled, broken furniture within. Sure enough, he heard that familiar, blood-curdling shriek, before their voice changes to moans, then clicks.

“Runners,” Joel whispered.

“Fuck,” Ellie whispered back. “What do we do?”

Joel slipped off the horse. “Alright, Ellie, like we practiced. You take the front and I will back you up.”

“Aw, Joel, today? Can’t we just take another route?”

“You gotta stay on top of this stuff, Ellie. Can’t afford to have an off day in this world.” Joel replied, firmly.

Ellie sighed before quietly slipping off the horse, throwing Scout’s reigns over the branches of a nearby tree. “Alright. You got my back?”

Joel nodded in affirmation. “Always.”

Ellie crouched and Joel followed suit, following after her as she entered the house. Ellie took cover behind a bookshelf that was tossed over on its side, while Joel hid behind a cabinet, listening closer.

“I think there’s two of them,” Ellie called to Joel. “We’ve gotta move further in.” With that, Ellie took out her knife from her pocket and inched forward into the ruins of the house. Since the ceiling was still mostly intact, snow hadn’t fallen into most of the house, so there was no longer a foot trail. Joel listened further in as they crossed a set of stairs. There was no more shrieking, but instead, wracking sobs echoed from up the steps.

“Wait, shh, shh,” He called to Ellie. “Up here.”

Ellie nodded. “Alright.” She turned and slowly made her way up the stairs, and Joel trailed behind, his shotgun in his gloved hands. At the top of the stairs, Ellie ducked behind an overturned chair and peeked out from the top of it into the next room. “Joel, over here,” she whispered.

Joel poked his head up and sure enough, there were two runners in the next room over. They stood with their backs to Joel and Ellie, moaning and howling.

“I’ll get one, you get the other,” Ellie said, and, seemingly taking a deep breath, she began forward, and Joel trailed behind. Joel watched, gun at the ready, as Ellie approached the back of the runner and leapt up to her full height, wrapping one arm around the side of it and jamming her knife into its neck. She then dropped the freshly made corpse to the floor as quietly as possible. 

Joel stepped up, gun holstered, slowly advancing upon the other runner left in the room. He sprung upon the Infected, wrapping his strong arms around its neck and wringing until the muffled wails stopped and the body went limp in his arms. Placing the corpse on the ground, he said, “I think that’s it. Good job, kiddo. You’re getting better at this.”

“Well, getting tall enough to actually reach their necks is a big help,” Ellie remarked with a roll of her eyes, standing up to her full height of five foot, five inches. 

Joel chuckled. “Let’s get back to Scout,” he directed, and he too stood as they exited the abandoned home.

Once back on the horse, Joel and Ellie passed through beyond the outskirts of town. The abandoned buildings gave way to the picturesque mountain scape, with snowy peaks and pine trees dotting the land all around them. Even Joel was taken with the landscape; mountains like these sure didn’t exist in Austin when he was growing up, and the flat cityscape of Boston certainly couldn’t compare. The way they rose high above the land, powerful and unmoving, untouched by remnants of the former world in the way cities and towns were. As though they were above the CBI Outbreak; which, Joel supposed, they were. How tiny, a human life, compared to a tree, a mountain, a planet. It was sobering to think; how humanity had once thought itself the master of the universe, and what became of that. And to realize that even before the Outbreak, it’s not as though the universe had owed humanity an easy existence. Living was a miracle in and of itself.

“Look over here,” Joel said, gesturing to a downhill patch with a steady slope. “This looks like a good spot. You ready?”

“Hell yeah,” Ellie responded, hopping off of Scout. She unhooked the rope handle on the toboggan from Scout’s saddle, and led the sled over to the edge of the slope. “Here,” She said, handing the reigns of the toboggan to Joel, “You can teach me how to steer.”

“Alright. Well, it’s simple,” He said, hitching Scout to a nearby tree and approaching the sled and sitting down in front. “You just hold onto the front curve here and turn it where you want to go. I don’t see any trees down there but if there’s something in the way, you’d want to move over quick.”

“Okay,” Ellie said, and Joel caught a hint of nervousness in her voice behind the excitement. She sat down on the sled behind Joel, and tucked her arms around him again. 

“You just gotta use your feet to scootch forward…” Joel said, slowly pushing the sled along, “And eventually…”

At that moment, gravity overtook them, and they began to glide down the hill. Joel heard Ellie gasp as the wind rushed by his pink ears, but the gasp quickly dissolved into joyful giggles as they rushed down the snowy hill. They sped up, sliding faster and faster, Joel steering the toboggan in the direction to keep following the hill. At the foot of the hill, they finally slid out to a halt, and Ellie’s giggles finally subsided enough for her to get out, “Oh my god! That’s so much fun!”

“Told you you’d like it,” Joel responded with a grin. “C’mon, now we lead it back up the hill,” He said, picking up the toboggan and starting up the slope. “You wanna take the reigns this time?”

“You bet,” Ellie said, and sure enough, once they reached the top of the hill, Ellie snatched the sled from Joel and took her spot at the front. Joel got on behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder for support. Slowly, bit by bit, Ellie inched their way forward until their weight tipped them over the edge of the hill. “Whoaaa!” Ellie yelled, taking the front of the sled and pushing harder. “Faster!”

All too soon, they reached the foot of the hill again, and they had no sooner stopped when Ellie picked up the toboggan and began to hike back up the hill again for yet another go. 

So Ellie and Joel spent the afternoon; they munched on strips of beef jerky and nuts, Ellie making the occasional snow angel, the shadows of the snow blue beneath her. The biting cold was made sweet by the exhilarating rush of air falling down the hill. They stayed out the whole day, exploring new hills and taking the toboggan out on all of them, until the sky turned yellow and the sun sank low on the horizon. 

By the time the pair returned to the wall of Jackson, stars had begun to poke their way out in the sky, and the twinkling lights on the buildings and fixtures of Jackson shined back to greet them. Joel could feel the pride of everyone in Jackson on those shining lights, the only ones around for miles with their own electric and light. 

Joel and Ellie stopped at home for a moment, dropping off the toboggan inside before heading back across town to Tommy and Maria’s home. A roasted wild pheasant sat waiting to be carved on the table, surrounded by a pile of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and turnips. Flaky biscuits made with the dairy cow’s milk and butter were passed around the table, and after dinner, Ellie descended upon her new stash of maple candies, plowing through her new comic books on the couch while Joel and Tommy talked and exchanged gifts; Joel received a mixtape of old classics, while he gifted Tommy a pile of VCRs of favorites from back in the day. Tommy’s arm was wrapped tight around Maria, and Maria’s father was fast asleep in his fixed up armchair. 

When Joel and Ellie returned home, both exhausted with the eventfulness of the day, Ellie turned to Joel and gave him a mighty hug. “Thank you for today, Joel,” she said, squeezing him tight. “Merry Christmas.” 

“Merry Christmas to you, too, baby girl.” Joel replied, holding Ellie tight before they pulled apart.

With that, Ellie dipped into her room, and Joel into his. 

There were so many ways that Ellie reminded Joel of Sarah, but there were even more ways that Ellie was just herself and Joel loved her all the same. Her alertness, her strength, her humor, her understanding and enthusiasm and affection — Joel felt so proud of who she was, and who she was growing up into. She was not Sarah; she didn’t have to be. Joel had learned over twenty years ago to not count on his expectations — and he never would’ve expected to have a daughter again after he lost his first born, but he loved them both just the same.

He turned on the light beside his bed, changing out from his layers of warm clothing into night clothes. Unwrapping his brand new scarf from around his neck, he placed it on his bedside table. He paused for a moment, his fingertips lingering on the knit yarn, as his gaze lifted to the photograph of Joel with Sarah, pinned up on his wall. Joel’s fingertips lifted from the scarf and faintly touched just below Sarah’s face, grinning up at the camera with her trophy in her first. Joel reminded himself to breathe.

“Merry Christmas, baby girl,” he whispered, getting into bed and turning out the light.

**Author's Note:**

> chapter two of the d word is coming soon, btw!


End file.
